at 



vy 



MEMOIR 



OF 



NATHANIEL THAYER, A.M 



BY 



GEORGE E. ELLIS. 

tl 



[Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society.] 



^ 



^ 



CAMBRIDGE : 
JOHN WILSON AND SON. 

SKmbersttg ^ress* 

1885. 






Jfiaggaribugetts historical Society 



At the Monthly Meeting, March 8, 1883,— 

Resolved, That the Massachusetts Historical Society have heard 
with deep regret of the death of their distinguished and respected 
associate, Nathaniel Thayer, Esq., and that a Memoir of him 
be prepared for some future volume of our Proceedings. 

Resolved, That the Memoir of Mr. Thayer be committed to 
Dr. George E. Ellis. 



/23 



w 



7 



MEMOIR. 



The ancestors of the Thayer family in Massachusetts came 
here with the earliest colonists from England. We find 
Thomas Tayer, his wife Margerey, and three sons, settled in 
Old Braintree about 1630. He was accompanied, or soon fol- 
lowed, by his brother Richard. They came from Thornbury, 
Gloucestershire, England : the name is found on the old 
records of the place, but is now extinct there. The grand- 
children of the first Thomas inserted the letter h in the name, 
which the descendants have ever since adopted. Like so 
many of the original New England families, the branches of it 
became numerous and fruitful, extending by marriage into 
wide genealogical connections. 1 It is safe to say of all such 
families of our early stock, with their branches and affiliations, 
that in their generations they present us the names of service- 
able and honored persons — often conspicuously so — who have 
filled all the varied callings, occupations, and places needed, 
and open to those fit for them, in a thrifty and prosperous 
community, steadily advancing from its days of small things, 
by frugal living, laborious toil, and ambitious enterprises, to 
the higher planes of wealth, culture, and refinement. Hus- 
bandmen and Indian fighters ; ministers, schoolmasters, and 

1 Family Memorial, part ii. Genealogy of Ephraim and Sarah Thayer, by 
Elisha Thayer of Dedham : Hingham, 1835. Memorials of the Thayer Name from 
the Massachusetts Colony of Weymouth and Braintree, Richard and Thomas 
Thayer and their Descendants, by Bezaleel Thayer : Oswego, 1874. N. E. Hist. 
Geneal. Register, vol. xxxvii. p. 84 ; and the number for October, 1883, p. 413. 



physicians ; blacksmiths, millers, carpenters, craftsmen, and 
mechanics, plying every tool ; members of the General Court 
and selectmen ; military and judicial officers ; and politicians, 
equal to dealing with national interests, — all these appear, 
in picturesqueness, variety, homely utility, and grave dignity, 
in our genealogical volumes. 

The Thayer family, instead of being exceptional as for any 
limitation, has exhausted and enriched the list. Two of its 
members are incidentally worthy of special mention. To one 
from this original Puritan stock belongs the distinction of 
having been the priest of the first regularly organized Church 
Society of Roman Catholics in Boston. This was John Thayer, 
a son of Cornelius Thayer who was a brother of the great- 
grandfather of Mr. Nathaniel Thayer. John Thayer, though 
his parents were of Braintree, was born in Boston, May 15, 
1758. Though not a graduate of the college, he was trained 
for the Congregational ministry, and served for a time as chap- 
lain to Governor John Hancock. While travelling in Europe 
in 1781-83, he accepted in Rome the authority of the Church, 
and was baptized in its communion. After pursuing his edu- 
cation in the Seminary of St. Sulpice, in Paris, he was or- 
dained as deacon and priest, returned to this country laden 
with books, and was sent by Dr. Carroll of Baltimore on a 
mission to Boston in January, 1790. Political disturbances at 
home had driven hither at the time a few educated French- 
men, who, with some Irish and other foreigners here, made up 
a small congregation. Such disciples had heretofore been 
ministered to only by two priests transiently visiting Boston. 
Notwithstanding some manifestations of natural disappro- 
bation, Father Thayer found friends and helpers among Prot- 
estants. He gratefully mentions the kindness of the Customs 
officers in admitting his books and church furniture free of 
duty. The disused Huguenot Chapel in School Street was 
fitted up for his use, and there he faithfully and peacefully 
performed his priestly offices. He sustained his part in some 



controversial warfare through the press. He afterward did 
missionary service in Kentucky, and died in Limerick, Ireland, 
1813. 1 

Another of the Thayer family, born in the last century, 
deserving special mention, was Sylvanus Thayer. He was 
born in 1785, in Braintree, where he died, Sept. 7, 1872. He 
graduated from Dartmouth College in 1808, " the most brill- 
iant boy in his class," and immediately entered the Engineer 
Service of the United States, being Chief Engineer in the last 
war with Great Britain. He was the most efficient organizer 
of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and 
from 1817 to 1833 its highly honored and distinguished Super- 
intendent. After his resignation, which was with difficulty 
allowed, he had charge of the fortifications in Boston Harbor. 
At his death, from the savings of a frugal life he left a gener- 
ous sum for building and endowing a free academy in his 
native town. A noble monument was reared and dedicated 
to the memory of Brigadier-General Sylvanus Thayer at West 
Point, June 11, 1883. 2 

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his tribute before this 
Society to Ralph Waldo Emerson, said : " A New Englander 
has a right to feel happy, if not proud, if he can quarter his 
coat-of-arms with the bands of an ancestry of clergymen, as 
representing the true Brahminism of New England." This 
remark has often found illustrations of its truth in the now 
voluminous pages of , our published Collections and Proceedings. 

1 See Pattee's " History of Old Braintree and Quincy," p. 272, where are given 
two letters of Father Thayer. " Memorial History of Boston," vol. iii. chap. xiv. 
In that pleasant, gossipy volume, " Recollections of Samuel Breck," beginning a 
few years preceding the war of our Revolution, the writer mentions an interview 
which he had with Thayer in his college in Paris in 1787. Breck himself, tempo- 
rarily at least, avowed himself a convert to the Church, and in that character 
promised assistance to Thayer when he should reach Boston on his mission. On 
his arrival Breck was faithful to his promise, though in the mean while he says 
he had relapsed into Protestantism. Pp. 84, 116, 117. 

2 An admirable biographical sketch of the character and career of this honored 
man was delivered on the occasion by his devoted friend, General George W. 
Cullum. 



These abound in memoirs of men of high eminence and service 
in their several generations, whose lineage and training con- 
nect them with our country parsonages. We may safely affirm 
that a considerable majority of those who have been conspicu- 
ous, honored, and successful in all the varied ranges of life in 
New England, during its past centuries and till quite recent 
times, had near kinship with the ministerial profession. It is 
interesting to note this element in our local history, because 
some marked and rapid changes among us, in circumstances, 
conditions, and relative professions, indicate that what was so 
characteristic in our earlier generations is not likely to be per- 
petual. The New England parsonage is already an antiquity. 
The relative position, the rank, the standard of character, 
acquisition, and social and professional influence of its occu- 
pant, the range of its hospitalities, the quality of its most wel- 
come guests, if not all reduced in measure and dignity, are not 
so distinctive and effective as once they were. The tone, the 
discipline, the conversation of parents and guests in those 
favored homes were a good part of the education of the chil- 
dren, and were peculiarly favorable and stimulating. Graces 
and virtues, ambitions and energies, were there taught and 
tested such as insure success in all their higher exertion. 
Where any quickening capacity, genius, or intellectual endow- 
ment had shown its germ in the parent stock, paternal or 
maternal, in the country parsonage, the law of heredity insured 
its presence in the descendants. 

Nathaniel Thayer, a brother of the priest already men- 
tioned, was born in Boston, July 17, 1710. He married here 
Ruth, a sister of the Rev. Dr. Andrew Eliot, minister of the 
New North Church in Boston from 1742 till his death in 1778. 
He remained in the town during its occupancy by the British 
army in our Revolutionary War. The eldest child of these 
parents was the Rev. Ebenezer Thayer, born in Boston, July 16, 
1734 ; graduated at Harvard College in 1753 ; and settled as 
the minister of Hampton, New Hampshire, from 1766 to his 



death in 1792. His wife, Martha Cotton, was a daughter of the 
Rev. John Cotton, of Newton, and a direct descendant of the 
minister of the First Church in Boston. These were the parents 
of the Rev. Nathaniel Thayer, D.D., who graduated at Harvard 
College in 1789, and was settled in the ministry at Lancaster, 
Massachusetts, in 1793, till his death in 1840. He married 
Sarah, a daughter of the Hon. Christopher Toppan, of Hampton. 
They were the parents of eight children ; the seventh of which, 
Nathaniel, the subject of this memoir, was born in Lancaster, 
Sept. 11, 1808. He would have regarded any memorial sketch 
of himself, however brief, as wholly defective if it failed to 
pay some adequate tribute of high respect and honor to his 
father, for whom his filial reverence and fondest attachment 
all through life manifested themselves so tenderly and so 
attractively ; holding him by still living obligations long after 
his father's decease, and prompting and directing a conspicu- 
ous object of his munificence, as well as countless deeds of 
benevolence. 

Dr. Nathaniel Thayer and his home in Lancaster answered 
to the type of country minister and rural parsonage which 
were had in view in a preceding paragraph. They are pleasant 
realities of our New England past, to be reproduced no more. 
Here was a delightful town of hills and valleys, with a mean- ' 
deri-ng river of two branches, and many brooks and ponds, 
thirty-five miles from Boston. It was the fairest among the 
similar villages and towns which surrounded it. It throve by 
all the industries of farm, manufactory, and work-bench. Its 
homes were scenes of domestic duty and comfort. Its popu- 
lation, during the latter part of Dr. Thayer's long ministry of 
nearly half a century, was about two thousand. These all 
were his parishioners, "his flock." There was in the town 
but a single religious society, but a single centre for religious 
instruction and worship, — twice on the Lord's day, with an 
occasional lecture. In later 3 r ears there was found necessary 
in Lancaster, as in most of our populous towns, a public farm, 



8 



with proper buildings, as a refuge for a few unfortunate, im- 
poverished, lonely, or decrepit persons. These, too, were 
Dr. Thayer's parishioners. At due intervals, on closing his 
afternoon duties in the meeting-house, he would announce 
that services would be immediately held at this refuge, whither 
he and his wife would drive on the errand of sympathy. The 
condition of each and of all his parishioners was intimately 
known to him. He had their respect and confidence, and they 
profited by his word and deed. 

Dr. Thayer must be remembered in connection with a class 
of his brethren in the ministry whose position, circumstances, 
views, and duties w r ere like his own, — sole ministers in single 
towns, with no sectarian rivalry or discord near them. They 
retained what was best — indeed, they aimed to retain all 
that w x as good — in the traditions, the responsibilities and the 
dignities of their profession. They respected their lineage, 
and recognized an historic trust in the Christian religion and 
its ministry. Those who were nearest in opinion and sym- 
pathy with Dr. Thayer had softened, modified, liberalized 
some of the tenets of their traditional creed, without losing 
hold or heart for Christian verities or sanctities. Their 
preaching was didactic and hortatory, concerned with the 
duties and virtues and graces of daily and domestic life, with 
lessons that recognized its solemnities. They kept a watching 
and a cheerful eye on the children growing up in the house- 
holds. They were the guardians, supervisors, constant visitors, 
and examiners of the public schools, and made friends and 
found friends in good books. There was nothing priestly, 
sacerdotal, scarcely anything ecclesiastical, in assumption or 
function, in their offices. " Ministers of the word" was their 
preferred designation ; and instead of a gradation of hierarchi- 
cal titles, they put themselves on an equality of discipleship 
with each other and their people as " brethren." Harvard 
College, the Alma Mater of all of them, was the centre of their 
intellectual and professional interest, as the legacy of English- 
bred scholars, their fathers. 



The special friends and intimates of Dr. Thayer, in college 
or later, were men of an honored and cherished remembrance : 
President Kirkland and William Emerson, his classmates ; 
Thatcher, Freeman, and Lowell of Boston ; Holmes of Cam- 
bridge, Professor Ware, Osgood of Medford, Bancroft of Wor- 
cester, Ripley of Concord, and Allen of Northborough. He 
held the place of honor in his ministerial association. Before his 
settlement at Lancaster he had been an instructor at Harvard, 
had been invited to the society in Church Green, Boston, and 
had been a private teacher in the family of Colonel Timothy 
Pickering, Secretary of War and of State. While on a jour- 
ney for his health, Dr. Thayer died at Rochester, New York, 
June 23, 1840. 

The other children of the family who lived to maturity — 
with whom the subject of this Memoir grew up, all being his 
elders, some of whom will be mentioned again — were : Mar- 
tha, who married John Marston, Esq., United States Consul 
at Palermo, Sicily ; Mary Ann ; John Eliot ; and Christopher 
Toppan, for twenty-five years minister of the First Church in 
Beverly. These are all deceased. 

The tenure of office for a minister in Dr. Thayer's time was 
for life. If age or infirmity disabled him for duty, he was 
provided with a colleague. Dr. Thayer himself had sustained 
that relation for more than two years with his predecessor, 
who died at the age of eighty, after a service of forty-eight 
years. The line of faithful village pastors in Lancaster began 
in the early days of the colony, and amid the perils and deso- 
lations of Indian warfare. The well-known narrative of the 
wife of the first minister, Mrs. Rowlandson, of her captivity 
by the Indians in their disastrous attack on the town in 1676, 
when the fortified parsonage and most of the humble cabins 
in the settlement were burned, and the place for some years 
abandoned, was one of the New England classics of the 
period. 1 Dr. Thayer's parsonage was near the site of this 

1 Mrs. Rowlandson's Narrative, which had appeared in eleven editions — in 
another one, printed in 1828, was illustrated with valuable notes by Joseph 

2 



10 



wrecked home of his predecessor. His early years of service 
were in frugal days of simple living, before the multiplication of 
appliances and luxuries. His salary for his whole ministry 
of nearly half a century did not amount to half that number 
of thousands of dollars. A farm and a wood-lot, with some 
slight patrimony, assured him all the conditions of comfort and 
competency. Like all his ministerial brethren, he sent one son 
to college, and would doubtless have sent them all, had they 
desired it. Like most of his brethren, likewise, he found in 
the mother of his children one of those admirable women, fit 
not only to aid, but to prompt every wifely and maternal 
obligation in domestic and parental duty. Those ministers' 
wives, fully as much as their husbands, were the property, for 
all excellent service of interest and oversight, of their parish- 
ioners. In dignity and graces, in culture and accomplish- 
ments, and in all exemplary qualities for the home and for 
social relations, Mrs. Thayer was the crown of her husband 
and the revered and beloved guide of her children. 

It was in such a home and with such guardians that the 
subject of this Memoir was trained to manhood. That he 
was a healthful and a happy boy, of rural blood and fibre, 
acquainted with farm-work and fond of roaming in the 
woods, and a genial companion of those who were growing 
up around him, will appear when a later reference is made to 
his strong attachment to his native place and its people. In 
his youth the town had many citizens and families of comfort- 
able resources, intelligence, and culture, and in professional 
service. As a matter of course there was an academy, and 
teachers of the highest qualities, among whom it is enough to 
mention such afterwards distinguished men as Jared Sparks 
and George B. Emerson. Mr. Thayer enjoyed peculiar ad- 

Willard, Esq., of Lancaster — is the earliest in the series of such relations of cap- 
tives taken by the Indians, who afterwards escaped or were ransomed. The 
savages, to the estimated number of fifteen hundred, led by King Philip, assaulted 
and destroyed the rural hamlet, Feb. 10, 1676. Her husband had gone to Boston 
at the time of the assault to procure aid for the settlement. She was in captivity 
about twelve weeks. 



11 



vantages in his relations to his teachers, because of their 
special intimacy at the parsonage. Each passing year brought 
to that centre of the best influences a succession of guests 
and visitors, from whose conversation and manners there was 
much to be learned by young listeners and observers. The 
intimates of Mr. Thayer all through his life were always im- 
pressed by the signs that though the tenor and occupations of 
his business activity drew him away from the pursuits of lit- 
erature and science, he was ever an intelligent and apprecia- 
tive companion of the foremost and most accomplished masters 
in those pursuits. His munificent patronage of literary and 
scientific men made him essentially a fellow of them. 

His brother John Eliot Thayer, five years his elder, had 
preceded him in going to Boston to enter upon a business 
life. The capital of both the brothers was integrity and 
capacitjr. To these, largely helped indeed by signally favor- 
able opportunities, judiciously improved, they were indebted 
for a wonderful success, such as is gained only by the few, 
while the many fail in full or in degree. When Nathaniel 
Thayer went to Boston, his main purpose first was to secure a 
business training. This he found, first in a clerkship, and 
then in a partnership in mercantile firms. From the first he 
was choice and careful in forming his social relations, and in 
prudential and conscientious watchfulness of character. He 
attached himself to the ministry of the Rev. Hemy Ware, Jr., 
minister of the Second Church. His name appears on its 
records as sharing in its works of religion and benevolence. 
His brother John having established himself successfully as a 
banker and broker, with the prospect of a steadily extending 
business, received him into partnership in 1834, under the firm 
of John E. Thayer & Brother. The connection continued 
till the death of the elder in 1857. The acquisitions of the 
firm and the property which accrued to the survivor were 
large for the date and the then existing state of the business 
world. They were small, however, compared with those which 



12 



afterwards, in the rapid development of the material interests 
of the country, were gathered by the younger brother. His 
success was so signal, the means of it were so connected with 
the development of the prosperity of our whole country, and 
the generous use which he made of it was so beneficial to this 
community, as to call for some recognition here of the high 
reponsibilities of men of wealth. 

Mr. Thayer left at his decease the largest fortune that had 
ever been accumulated in this city or State. There may have 
been a single exception to this in the case of an individual who 
had removed from this city to another State before his death. 
If Mr. Thayer had been told at his start in life that such 
would be the result of his business activity, he would have 
marvelled at, if not mistrusted, the prophecy. There have 
been cases in which bold and keenly calculating men have set 
before them that aim of supreme success in accumulation, 
and, keeping it hopefully and resolutely in view, have wrought 
earnestly to accomplish it. Probably, however, the idea had 
never presented itself consciously to the mind of Mr. Thayer. 
His temperament and views of life were not in harmony with 
it. His kind and lavish generosity and munificence in giving 
would alone distinguish him from those who, while always 
seeking for more, keep a close hold upon what they have won. 
Mr. Thayer's fortune was the growth of natural processes ; it 
was largely the accretion of his latest years, an accumulation 
on itself, from reproductive seed and harvests. There is, 
therefore, an historical interest, apart from its individual bear- 
ings, in this instance of the growing up of a vast fortune in a 
thrifty and exceedingly prosperous community. Indeed, the 
whole subject of the development and accumulation of wealth, 
in lesser or in greater volume, in this particular community car- 
ries with it much that is of peculiar interest and importance 
in any historical review of the economic progress of this sec- 
tion of our country in its relations to the whole of which it is 
so prospered a part. 



13 



We may trace in a series, through the two and a half cen- 
turies since the region around us was a wilderness, the sources 
and means by which alike a general accumulation and enrich- 
ment of property for all, and the towering fortunes of indi- 
viduals have accrued here. The first method in the series 
by which our whole local communit}^ and the most prospered 
individuals in it have been enriched, was by commercial and 
mercantile enterprise. In fact, for more than a century this 
was the only agency for our development and improvement. 
It began with the first settlement of the colony, in inter- 
changes by the high seas of the products of the wilderness 
and the fisheries for those of the West Indies, and it steadily 
expanded into a world-wide traffic over all oceans. It was 
the most generous and healthful, as well as the most profit- 
able and rewarding of all the means of thrift. It promoted 
a friendly intercourse between widely severed peoples, and 
an exchange of necessities and luxuries. It employed ship- 
builders and riggers and other craftsmen, and trained a race 
of able and accomplished seamen. It opened rills from the 
ocean which bore comforts and valuable appliances to homes 
deep in wildernesses. 

The second agency in historic course for the development 
and enrichment of our community was by great manufactur- 
ing enterprises, promoted by joint capital. These also made a 
large general distribution of the means of comfort and luxury 
among the whole community, while the largest gains of wealth 
from them accrued to a comparatively few favored individuals. 
Incidental to the development of these industries were the 
inventions and discoveries, by men of practical skill and me- 
chanical genius, of an infinite and marvellous variety of devi- 
ces, tools, implements, methods, processes, and combinations, 
most of which, by our patent laws, could be turned to se- 
curing vast profits. The Patent Office at Washington shows, 
on its crowded tables and in its cases, the gatherings, in an 
amazingly miscellaneous collection, of all these ingenuities and 



14 

devices. Large fortunes have been secured to individuals by 
their patented ownership of some implement, process, or combi- 
nation, some stupendous machine, a tool, or an application of 
inventive mechanical skill in some trivial instrument for facili- 
tating the homeliest forms of labor. Between reaping and 
threshing machines, and sewing machines, for the vast fields 
of the prairies, and the toils of the seamstress in millions of 
households, come in somewhere in the series the apple-parer 
and the little implement by which blinded eyes may thread a 
needle. The telephone bears a similar relation to these ingenui- 
ties to that which the century plant bears to garden flowers. 
And for each of these myriad devices either the inventor him- 
self, or another who shows equal adroitness in appropriating its 
value, turns a fortune. Again, in the rapid development and 
enrichment of a community like our own, the extraordinary 
appreciation of value in parcels of real estate, with wise invest- 
ment of proceeds, has been of large profit to favored ones. 

But all the means and sources for the accumulation of 
large wealth by individuals in this and some other cities of our 
country, which have been mentioned, have been comparatively 
moderate in their results, in view of those which have accom- 
panied the vast operations of the banking and brokerage busi- 
ness consequent upon the introduction of the railroad system 
for travel and traffic over the ever-extending expanses of our 
territory. Pecuniary wealth has accrued here from the pro- 
cesses by which all kinds of material wealth have been devel- 
oped. After the first third of this century had passed, the 
successive longitudinal lines which have in turn marked for 
us what is called the " West " had begun to disclose their 
vast resources and capabilities. In turning these to use, with 
all the incidental advantages of improvement and intercourse 
which would follow, everything depended upon facilitating 
development and communication. The very richness of the 
soil of those regions impeded and presented obstacles to the 
turning of its products to marketable profit. The laden carts 



15 



sunk to the hubs of their wheels in the loamy mould. For a 
large part of the year the abounding rivers and lakes were 
not navigable. The railroads offered their promise of relief 
and profit just at the right time. But there was an inter- 
posed condition still to be met ; and as it was one which in 
the way of bargain offered equal advantages to the two parties 
concerned, it was readily provided for. The East and the 
West were to be alike benefited by the opening of intercourse 
and traffic between the two sections of the country, and both, 
therefore, were bound to furnish the needful means. As the 
brothers Thayer were so largely, intelligently, and profitably 
concerned in the legitimate and wise enterprises having in 
view these ends, a reference to them is quite in place here. 
If either of them had had leisure from their busily occupied 
lives to have turned the entries in their ledgers into historical 
narrative, he might have written for us some very instruc- 
tive chapters upon the development of our country. The 
West at the time was not rich in pecuniary capital, for which 
it had to look for loans from the East. The earliest of the 
loans advanced by the East for opening railroads at the West 
were legitimate and judicious, and proved profitable to the 
investors. Road-beds were graded, constructed, and ironed 
for the most part by the combined resources, small or more 
considerable, of the owners of territory on their route and at 
their termini. These resources, however, were exhausted be- 
fore the necessary rolling-stock, repair-shops, and stations were 
provided for. As soon as the roads could come into opera- 
tion, returns would steadily come in in increasing volume. 
The parties most interested proceeded to borrow what was 
still needed by bonds pledging all the property and the need- 
ful portion of the income of the roads for security of princi- 
pal and interest of the loan. These bonds, sold in large 
blocks to capitalists at a discount, enabled them to distribute 
them at a premium ; and all who were concerned in these 
honest dealings received a proportionate advantage. But after 



16 



the mischievous fashion of our country — and of all other 
countries, according to their opportunities — of overdoing and 
of misdoing in such matters, elements neither judicious nor 
legitimate soon obtruded themselves in these transactions con- 
nected with the constructing and mortgaging of railroads. 
Rival enterprises, with their jealousies, sharp schemings and 
unscrupulous or hazardous manoeuvres, very soon came in to 
pervert, embarrass, or bring under distrust this honest and 
safe method of business. Fraud and folly were sure to assert 
their places in the hands of avaricious or reckless men. The 
proceeds of the sale of bonds or mortgages were used in- 
stead of capital stock for the construction and equipment of 
roads, and thus were made the sole security, so far as they 
were any security at all, for loans on what had only an im- 
aginary existence. The risks which trustful investors thus 
hazarded had in most cases only results of disaster. Only 
judgment, caution, and even patient waiting for the deferred 
returns from really wise and honest schemes, could secure 
those who exercised sound discretion in these ventures. 

It is to the " operations," so called, connected with the pro- 
cesses and contracts which have thus developed the resources 
of our country, that we are to trace the accumulation of the 
vast and seemingly incalculable fortunes gathered by indi- 
viduals, mostly within the last thirty or forty years. The 
satellites attendant upon the original, more responsible princi- 
pals in these transactions have turned them to account in in- 
cidental ways, the most noteworthy of which is known under 
the technical term of "cornering." If the writer — not an 
expert — understands its signification, it means the securing, 
or at least the attempting to secure, the sole mastery of some 
form of stock or some product. The writer once had pointed 
out to him, among the fashionables on the avenue at Newport, 
an individual distinguished as having " cornered all the lard 
in the country." 

The class of men, mixed in all the degrees and shades of 



17 

integrity, intelligence, shrewdness, capacity, nobleness, and 
less reputable qualities of character, who are concerned in the 
various lines of business just referred to, are designated by 
the comprehensive epithets of " bankers and brokers." They 
are as essential and as useful in our prosperous communities 
as is a system of water-works, with its contributing springs 
and water-courses, its reservoirs and its distributing and ser- 
vice pipes. They gather and they divide. They make what 
is of value here available in any part of the globe, either 
through the medium of a piece of paper or by a message sent 
under the ocean currents. Furnish them with seed that has 
life in it, and they will anticipate for }^ou its deferred harvest. 
Like the clouds which retain the gathered vapors of the earth, 
while sometimes chargeable for droughts or freshets, they hold 
in control the floating wealth of a people ; and an ideal theory 
would make every one a sharer in it. 

Of the risks, mischances, and catastrophes attendant upon 
the '• operations" just referred to, there is no occasion or place 
for mention here. One might compare the disasters and 
wrecks that have followed some forms of speculation on land 
to those which occur on the ocean, only we should need to 
substitute human for elemental agencies. Of the schemes 
which have been devised in fraud or folly, or those which, by 
individual or combined greed, have used the community and 
the rights of all as puppets, and of those which, on occasions, 
in their exposure and general ruin have shaken confidence in 
all business enterprise, we have had a woful instance, sufficient 
as a warning for all time, in the trick played upon so many 
victims, but notably upon the victorious leader of our patriot 
armies and the chief magistrate of our country. 

It is a relief to turn from a passing reference to these abuses 
of a needful and honorable method of business, to recognize 
the success in it of the brothers Thaj^er. As the scope of 
transactions and the volume of enterprises extended in the 
charge of the surviving partner, the fluctuations and uncer- 
tainties attendant upon them involved risks, not only for 



18 

Mr. Thayer himself, but for those who followed his lead or 
judgment, which certainly was not infallible. It is not for 
the writer of these pages, unskilled or incompetent in such 
matters of business, to make statements or comments on Mr. 
Thayer's personal transactions, or on those which he shared 
with others, in the large enterprises, often complicated by 
uncertainties and by rival schemes, in the development of our 
vast railroad system. There were many who profited largely 
by their participation in them with him. Some of these, of 
course, had to share the disappointment or loss of occasional 
temporary or permanent defaults, and when unable or disin- 
clined to wait for deferred results, — which Mr. Thayer confi- 
dently, and, as it generally proved, justly believed would be 
satisfactory, — forgot former obligations to him. 

Of one fact incident to investments where the risks run 
parallel with large promised or expected returns, the writer 
has personal knowledge. Very many of the societies holding 
funds for our numberless charitable organizations, while always 
safely depending upon him for most generous gifts, naturally 
sought to avail themselves of his financial skill as their treas- 
urer. He accepted many such trusts. In every case the 
funds increased largely in his hands, as he invested them in 
securities which his judgment approved, and to which he com- 
mitted his own property. When, as occasionally happened, 
there was a default in the periodical return from one or an- 
other of these investments, he would pleasantly drop the 
remark, "I have so much of this that I may as well have 
more," and assuming the obligation he charged himself with 
the full sum in his account. And when he made over any 
such trust, his successor received only the most satisfactory 
and well-certified securities. 

It is more within the province and to the purpose of the 
present writer to show how the wealthiest of our citizens used 
the wealth of which, as he well said, he was simply put in 
trust, not in the absolute ownership. The accumulation dur- 
ing the last few years of enormous fortunes by individuals 



19 

favored in the general enrichment of our country, has opened 
many discussions, some of which are of the placid sort of quiet 
moral essays, and others of which are portents of communism 
and social convulsion. The common text of these discussions 
is, that the whole community has a claim upon a partition of 
the vast hoards which have been accumulated by individuals. 
Nor will any generous and right-minded person dispute that 
general statement, if he is permitted to make certain limita- 
tions and conditions. But it is spoken freely and boldly now 
as true and reasonable, when wholly unqualified. The public 
demand on the estate of a rich man after his decease is well- 
nigh as exacting as is that of the assessor of taxes during his 
life. When, in the publication of the probate on his will, 
which often accompanies his obituary, we read, " There are 
no public bequests," the sentence is intended to signify the 
opposite of a benediction. That great constituency which is 
served by the newspaper expects to be informed, in all such 
cases, of generous distributions among good objects. Hap- 
pily, there is more than one ground on which this expectation 
proceeds. It is prompted, if not justified, by the long and 
splendid succession, in this community at least, of munificent 
bequests left by men, not wealthy by the present standard, 
for endowing the almost numberless objects and institutions 
among us for all the noble interests of humanity. If only the 
teaching by such examples was the ground of public demand 
or expectation of like generosity, it would stand approved. 
If one should examine the treasurers' books of our various 
corporations and trusts, to gather from them the gross sum of 
what is now held by the dead hands of public benefactors for 
public uses, he would learn an impressive lesson. Indeed, some 
grievances have already found expression over the amount of 
such property that is exempted from taxation to increase the 
public burden. It is also a matter of wonder that while States 
and municipalities are incurring vast debts to be paid by pos- 
terity, we are relieving it of the duties of charity and mercy 
by large endowments of benevolent institutions. 



20 

There is, however, quite another ground than the examples 
of generosity in previous bequests on which rests the popular 
expectation — we may well call it the popular demand — that 
the estates of opulent persons should, before or after their 
decease, be in part distributed to objects of general improve- 
ment. It is observable by all who mark the tone and tenor 
of popular discussions, the rhetorical harangues of reformers, 
and the abounding essays upon exciting social problems, that 
the spirit of one type of communism among us has been inten- 
sified b}' the accumulation, within the last score of years, of 
gigantic fortunes by a few individuals. Heretofore the public 
was content to rest its expectations of generous bequests for 
its benefit upon the force of the emulation of others prompting 
a following of the examples of those generous benefactors 
who had bestowed their wealth among so many noble objects. 
But the demand to which we are now referring is of a more 
imperious tone. It seems to justify itself by pointing to the 
facility and the means by which stupendous fortunes have 
recently been acquired as involving a kind of rapacity and in- 
justice, to be redressed only by a generous partition of the 
heaped-up hoards. In the obituary notice of a deceased mer- 
chant prince we used to read the stereotyped form of words, 
" He acquired his wealth by industry, sagacity, and strict 
attention to business ; " but it is realized in our times that 
this does not tell the whole of the case as the eyes of keen ob- 
servers view it. Our incipient communists argue in this wise : 
The attainment of enormous wealth by a few individuals in 
communities where there are large masses of indigent and 
straitened people, proves that they have turned all the re- 
sources and opportunities around them to their special service 
and benefit. They have seized the lion's share. The bones 
and muscles of vast numbers of humble toilers, men and 
women, are wrought into the gains of private millionnaires. 
Luck may be an undefined, but is still a positive element in 
their success. They must not only have exercised sharpness 
and keen calculation in their secret enterprises, but they have 



21 - 

also assessed the common toil, and all the activity and appli- 
ances of the whole world of life around them, in the products of 
the soil, the factory and the corporate agencies. The largest 
fortunes have been piled up by those who seem only to have 
been passing " paper " through their hands, with none of the 
difficulties and frugalities of labor. To those whose toils are 
hard and whose gains are slow, and whose materials are the 
substantial things of product and fabric, there seems some- 
thing like magic or conjury in these paper manipulations of the 
broker or the banker, wrought in a luxurious office, with the 
agency of stock boards, telegrams, individual and combined 
speculations, and the technical terms of a trade of " bulling 
and bearing " wholly unintelligible except to the initiated. 
To the outside observer these manipulators do not appear to 
add to the real wealth of the world as much as does one who 
makes a pair of shoes, or even the pegs for putting them 
together. 

Those who see and reason only thus may perhaps be easily 
led to realize how few succeed, and how many go down, fevered 
and crushed, in the wreck of these speculations. But this 
fact only makes them the more pertinacious in insisting that 
the few who do succeed, and that superbly, have merely got 
so much more exorbitant a share out of the common treasury 
of humanity. It is little to the purpose to suggest to these 
incipient communists what large part these schemers and 
speculators have in developing the latent wealth, the unused 
resources of a country, and how many of the methods by 
which an individual wins a million of dollars may accrue to 
the benefit of a million persons of the present or a coming 
generation. The free and bold discussions which are going 
on around us seem to carry with them intimations that the 
way in which stupendous private fortunes are turned to ac- 
count here, whether for private or public ends, will have more 
to do in deciding many threatening social problems of our 
times than will any other single element the working of 
which we can now trace. We are warned that the thicken- 



22 

ing masses of toilers, and even of idlers, among us will not 
long quietly look on while a few roll up their hoards from the 
common fund of humanity. The spirit, the life, and the 
beneficence of such a millionnaire as Peter Cooper, if they 
could be made serviceable, not only as an example, but with 
the stamp of obligation, would furnish a stronger breastwork 
against communism than all conservative rhetoric and all 
police appliances. 

It is agreeable to turn away from these menacing claims 
upon the large estates of the opulent, and to recognize as we 
may the sense of responsibility in some of the possessors of 
great wealth, like the subject of this Memoir, who find their 
happiness in discharging their duty by its generous distribu- 
tion. Far better is it that this spirit should prompt a willing 
benefactor than that he should be teased or intimidated into 
parting with anything that he can call his own. It is observ- 
able that the hints and rude reminders which the newspapers 
and public declaimers address to the millionnaires of our time 
are not always graciously received. Those who are thus chal- 
lenged plant themselves on their rights. There is something 
irritating to the less noble-minded of our rich men in being 
made to feel that the whole community is waiting in expec- 
tancy as for a division of spoils. The legal heirs of a rich 
man also are apt to regard his property as their patrimony. 
There is a marked characteristic of our times connected with 
the vast increase of wealth, the aspect of which is very inter- 
esting. On many grounds we may call our era one of general 
benevolence, of generous and lavish giving. Those who have 
the means of knowing and observing what is going on pub- 
licly and privately around us might infer that we have a 
considerable number of persons, philanthropists and schemers, 
who are plying their ingenuity in devising objects and occa- 
sions for assessing a class of the community for daily contri- 
butions for a most miscellaneous mass of uses, most of them 
self-approving, though some may be fanciful. Institutions, 
colleges, libraries, hospitals, statues, testimonials, and memo- 



23 

rial tributes, funds for the relief of sufferers by famine, flood, 
fire, earthquake, and pestilence, have their solicitors on every 
hand and in every place. The shrewd among these solicitors 
are curiously wise, through experience, in judging whether 
an appeal for this or that object had best be made at places 
of business, in homes, or in churches, of men or of women, 
through public meetings or by quiet perseverance. The labor- 
saving of these canvassers have learned to provide themselves 
with lists from the papers of " those who are in the habit of 
giving," instead of taking their chance in a general and hap- 
hazard tour of solicitations. Under these circumstances it is 
not strange or unreasonable that some persons of wealth and 
of a liberal spirit should be annoyed by these incessant de- 
mands, and should decline to meet some of them at the risk of 
being reproached for stinginess. We are reminded also that 
it is neither in good taste nor right to pronounce strong en- 
comiums even upon the most generous who give out of their 
abundance, inasmuch as they thus deprive themselves of not 
a single luxury, while generous giving purchases them a new 
pleasure in repute. Yet, while the recognition of generosity 
in rich men may not be eulogistic, it should be responsive and 
appreciative on good reasons. Three of these reasons are 
strong ones. First, there are men of wealth who repel all 
these demands upon them in life, and in death leave " no pub- 
lic bequests." Second, if, as is said, the passion for gaining 
and keeping grows by accumulation, it is creditable to those 
who freely part with large sums that they resist this passion. 
And third, it is by the munificence of men of wealth that 
many noble enterprises and institutions of the highest public 
value, which may not legally be initiated or maintained by a 
tax or a draft on the treasury, have been planted, fostered, 
and endowed among us. The direct gifts to Harvard College 
from the public treasury, from its foundation till such dona- 
tions ceased, amounted to a quarter of a million of dollars, 
besides exemption from taxation. Its noble accumulations 
and endowments, halls, libraries, and apparatus, and vested 



24 

funds, represent hardly less than ten millions of private gifts. 
While we are restive under the burden of taxation in this 
city, we may remind ourselves that the sum of it is well 
balanced in amount by the income of funds munificently given 
to support institutions in whose privileges we all share. 

There is an alternative of methods by which our rich men 
have recognized their obligations to this community and to 
many benevolences beyond it. One is by bequests to take 
effect when they part with all they have. The other is by 
anticipation during their lives. Mr. Thayer felt profoundly, 
and cheerfully recognized, the responsibilit}^ and obligations of 
wealth. While he determined to leave to his heirs the means 
of imitating his own generosity, instead of so distributing his 
property as to lead them to feel that he had relieved them of 
such duty, he preferred to give in his lifetime and enjoy the 
sight of his good works. Though his early years were of fru- 
gal surroundings, and his first mercantile occupations were 
little more than remunerative, his mature life was one of vast 
and sunny prosperity. He was generous always according to 
his means, and his generosity kept even proportions with his 
accumulations. Some of its channels, by no means exhaust- 
ively, may now be traced. 

Mr. Thayer was elected a Fellow of the Corporation of 
Harvard College in 1868. This was a most exceptional honor 
to be conferred on one not a graduate ; for from the earliest 
times that the College had alumni, it had found among them 
those who could wisely and intelligently administer its inter- 
ests. The most conspicuous person who had, previously to 
Mr. Thayer, shared that exceptional honor, was the eminent 
mathematician Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch. There were reasons 
that warranted the election of Mr. Tha}^er. He had proved 
in many ways his interest in the College, its objects, officers, 
and students, all of whom had profited by his generosity in 
a variety of gifts. And as the funds of the Gollege were 
rapidly increasing, it was the more needful that there should 
be among the Fellows, as there always had been, one or more 



25 

skilled in finance and the management of trusts. Till he 
resigned his place in 1875, the institution had many occasions 
for valuing his services and offerings. The whole amount of 
the pecuniary gifts of Mr. Thayer to the College, its objects 
and resources, its officers and students, can never be known, 
as he himself kept no full record of them, and as many of 
his incidental benefactions were mingled in the general out- 
pouring of his most miscellaneous and comprehensive charities. 
Though the writer of these pages might, from the materials in 
his hands, make some approximate estimate of special and 
united sums, he prefers not to do so. The generous spirit, 
always hearty and genial in tone, method, and accompaniment, 
.vhich prompted these benefactions, is the main point to be 
held in regard. A brief mention of some prominent in the 
series and variety of these gifts may be suggestive to the reader 
of the cost involved in them. The writer was let into the 
knowledge that, at one period at least, Mr. Thayer kept three 
sets of check-books, answering to three banks of deposit. One 
of these had reference to his purely business affairs, one to his 
personal and domestic expenses, and the third to his charities. 
In cases where very large sums were involved, this distribu- 
tion might not always be regarded, and the sums which came 
directly from his pocket left no vouchers. The writer recalls 
some incidental remarks made by Mr. Thayer to him, when, 
after the decease of his brother partner, he realized that he 
was the possessor of a fortune, trifling, however, in amount to 
what afterwards came to him. They were in substance these : 
;< A power of money has come to my hands ; and I mean that 
ifc shall give me happiness, if it be in the power of money to 
yield it. That it may do so, I realize that I must share it and 
do some good with it. But I must have advice and help. I 
am beset by all sorts of applicants and importunities, in person 
and by letter, so that I am impeded in my privacy and busi- 
ness with my own affairs. Some of these applicants and their 
objects are of the best, but I am not always able or at leisure 
to discriminate them. I receive many canting letters, — " The 



26 

Lord has made you his steward,' etc." The aid which he 
solicited was through his permission given to some of his inti- 
mate friends, in various ranges and associations of life, to pre- 
sent to him with confidence of fit response any worthy object 
for which they could themselves answer. True to his reveren- 
tial regard for his father and his father's profession, the pet 
objects of the son's sympathies were impoverished and dis- 
abled ministers. It was well understood by his intimates that 
if either of them knew a young man of promise otherwise 
unable to enter or complete his course in college, the means 
would be abundantly furnished. All through the remainder 
of his life this was a favorite direction of his benevolence, and 
the gifts were not stinted. Many young men were supported 
by him through their whole college course. He expected his 
sons, when in college, to follow his example in all considerate 
ways. 

The most practically efficient of some of Mr. Thayer's de- 
vices for serving a class of students was that known as 
" Thayer Commons," something of which sort was made neces- 
sary when, before the establishment of the capacious dining- 
room in the Memorial Hall, the College, having abandoned 
its former provision, had left the students to the mercies of 
outside boarding-houses. The following graphic sketch of 
Mr. Thayer's device is furnished me by the Rev. Dr. A. P. 
Peabody, a friend greatly revered and loved by Mr. Thayer, 
and one of those who shared confidential^ in the partition of 
his generosity : — - 

Cambridge, April 6, 1883. 

My dear Dr. Ellis, — The origin of the boarding club at Cam- 
bridge was on this wise. I was spending a week at Lancaster, and in 
driving with Mr. Thayer one day, I told him of the hardships which I 
had discovered in some cases to be endured by students who undertook 
to board themselves. He at once told me that if I could make any 
arrangement for cheap board at cost, he would furnish the fund. There 
was a building, originally a railway-station, but then occupied in part by 
me for evening religious meetings, and in part by the " queen-goody " of 
the College. The Corporation gave the building up to me. I made the 



27 

queen-goody cook of the establishment, procured the requisite kitchen 
equipment and furniture, tables, seats, dishes, etc., costing in the whole 
more than a thousand dollars. We thus were able by crowding to 
accommodate some fifty or sixty students, while as many were excluded 
as could be admitted. The plan then was started of building in the 
rear of the rooms thus occupied, a dining-hall. For that a subscription 
paper was started, and a few hundred (less than a thousand) dollars sub- 
scribed. Mr. Thayer assumed the cost of building, which, with the requi- 
site furnishing and a large increase of kitchen plenishing, amounted to 
seven or eight thousand dollars. His expenditure in the whole must 
have been not less than seven thousand, and it was all that I asked for, 
and would have been twice or thrice as much, had I asked for it. As 
for the subscription, it was not started because he wanted that it should 
be, but because Ingersoll Bowditch was interested in the plan, wanted 
to do something for it, got up the paper himself, and was the only sub- 
scriber to it whom I can recall, probably the only one who gave more 
than a pittance. 

Ever truly yours, 

A. P. Peabody. 

This " Thayer Commons " was, at its institution, and for the 
term of its continuance, one of the most useful and highly- 
appreciated of all the general provisions made for the welfare 
and comfort of a large number of the students of the College. 
It combined felicitously the principles of self-support and a 
generous subsidy for necessary deficiencies. Even its limita- 
tions were among its advantages. That twice as many ap- 
plied for admission as could be received into it assured to it a 
privileged character. The patronage and oversight which it 
enjoyed made its generous management a certainty. From 
the first years of the College, when the students brought 
their dippers to the buttery hatch to receive weak beer and 
hard bread, down through the Commons in University Hall, 
when there was no gymnasium to help the processes of di- 
gestion, young appetites and their supplies were not always 
in amicable relations. Mr. Thayer's provision was a tri- 
umph till the dining-room in Memorial Hall superseded it. 
Dr. Peabody could have well extended his narrative by ref- 
erences to the incidental favors which circumstances led Mr. 



28 

Thayer to proffer to many of those who fed at his well- 
served tables. 

Through the kindness of President Eliot of Harvard Col- 
lege, the writer has been furnished with a copy, from the 
records of the Corporation, of the documents relating to that 
munificent donation to the College which bears the name of 
•' Thayer Hall." The accession of Mr. Eliot to the Presidency, 
soon after Mr. Thayer's election as a Fellow, was immediately 
followed by a rapid renewal and expansion of all the interests 
of the University, — in engaging for it the quickened regard 
of its large constituency, in extending the scope of its activity 
in all its departments, in adding to the compass of its curricu- 
lum and the number of its officers and instructors, and espe- 
cially by a sudden increase in the number of students joining 
its academic and its professional departments. Of course a 
corresponding and a large increase of its funds, and equally 
a multiplication of its halls, became very pressing wants. 
The supply of these wants was as liberally furnished as it was 
confidently expected. Mr. Thayer took the lead in the series 
of these benefactions. The following items from the records 
of the Corporation show the initiation and the completion of 
his design : *»- 

" July 31, 1869. Voted, That the President and Messrs. Thayer and 
Lowell be a committee to consider the expediency of erecting a new 
dormitory, and procure plans and estimates if they see fit. 

" Septi 25, 1869. The committee on the expediency of erecting a 
new dormitory presented a report recommending the immediate erec- 
tion of such a building. Whereupon it was Voted, To proceed forthwith 
to the erection of a new dormitory, according to the plans of Messrs. 
Ryder & Harris, and under their superintendence. 

" Voted, That the sum of the tenders of contract upon the said build- 
ing, and of the commissions chargeable upon the same, be limited to 
$100,000. 

" Voted, That the committee appointed July 31, 1869, be empowered 
to fix the site of the new building, and carry the above votes into 
execution." 



29 

A letter to the writer from President Eliot may be intro- 
duced here, as relating particulars of interest: — 

Cambridge, April 22, 1883. 

My dear Sir, — In reply to your inquiry of April 3d, I have much 
pleasure in giving you all the information which I possess concerning 
Mr. Nathaniel Thayer's greatest benefaction to the College, — Thayer 
Hall. 

In June, 1869, a few weeks after I became President, Mr. Thayer 
told me, at his office in Sears Building, that he thought the College ought 
to have another dormitory, the rents of which should be applicable to 
any college use, at the discretion of the Corporation, and that he 
meant to see that it was shortly built. Being a member of the Cor- 
poration at the time, he knew that unrestricted income was the great 
need of the College, and he was also aware that more students' rooms 
in the College Yard were desirable, in order that the prices of rooms 
in the town might be kept within reasonable limits. At the end of 
July a committee of the Corporation was appointed (Mr. Thayer being 
one of the committee) to consider the expediency of erecting a new 
dormitory, and to procure plans if they saw fit. Mr. Thayer selected 
as architect, Mr. Edward D. Harris, junior member of the firm of 
Ryder & Harris, of Boston, and a son of Thaddeus William Harris, a 
former Librarian of the University. In making this choice Mr. Thayer 
told me that he was influenced by early friendship for the Harris family. 
The plans of the building were prepared during the summer ; near the 
end of September the Corporation voted to proceed forthwith to the 
erection of a new dormitory, and early in October the foundations were 
begun. Cold weather stopped the work at the first floor. Work was 
resumed as early as possible in the spring, and was prosecuted vigor- 
ously, with the intention of getting the building ready for occupation 
by Oct. 1, 1870, and so securing the rents of the rooms for the academic 
year 1870-71. This object was accomplished, but to the injury of the 
wood-work of the interior, much of which was put in before the plas- 
tering was thoroughly dry. 

The main object which Mr. Thayer had in view was to secure a solid 
and durable building (almost all the interior partitions are of brick) 
with a considerable rental and accommodations for a large number of 
students. He deliberately preferred a plain building to an ornate but 
smaller one, on the ground that the College would get an advantage 
proportionate to the capacity of the Hall. The proceedings of the Cor- 
poration on the subject (a copy of which I enclose) give the impression 



30 

that at the start the Corporation expected to pay part of the cost of the 
Hall ; but before the plans and specifications were completed it became 
perfectly understood that Mr. Thayer meant to pay the whole cost. He 
made all the contracts and paid all the bills himself, including the bills 
for the necessary grading about the building. 

I never knew the exact cost of the whole work to Mr. Thayer, but 
it was not less than $100, 000. 1 The College had never before received 
so great a gift from a single benefactor, or a wiser gift from any source. 
The example set by Mr. Thayer has been followed, within twelve years, 
by Mr. Matthews, Mr. Weld, Mr. Heinmenway, Colonel Sever and 
Mrs. Sever, and the anonymous givers of the new Law School and the 
new Physical Laboratory. Mr. Thayer's objects have been perfectly 
attained. Nearly one hundred students live in Thayer Hall, and the 
Corporation get from it a net income of about $8,000 a year. 

I am very glad that Mr. Thayer's life is to be carefully and thoroughly 
written. It is good for the community, and particularly for young 
men, that such a life should be held in honorable remembrance. 

Believe me, my dear sir, with great respect, 

Very truly yours, 

Charles W. Eliot. 
Rev. George E. Ellis, D.D. 

Continuing the extracts from the records of the Corpora- 
tion, we have the following, Jan. 14, 1870 : — 

Boston, Jan. 10, 1870. 
To the President and Fellows of Harvard College : 

Gentlemen, — As stated in the report of the Committee upon a 
new Dormitory, dated Sept. 25, 1869, I agreed to pay the first fifty 
thousand dollars which might be called for. I now agree to pay the 
entire cost of the building, as the money may be wanted. 

My object in doing this is not simply to meet a great want of the 
College at this time, but also as a testimony of respect to the mem- 
ory of my much-loved and honored father, Nathaniel Thayer, D.D., 
who was a graduate of, and for some time an instructor in, the Col- 
lege ; and also to that of my brother John Eliot Thayer, who showed 
in various ways his interest in the College, and especially in estab- 
lishing the scholarships bearing his name. 

With much respect, yours truly, 

N. Thayer. 
1 It considerably exceeded that sum. 



31 

Whereupon it was — 

Voted, That the munificent offer of Mr. Thayer be gratefully ac- 
cepted, and that the President make suitable acknowledgment thereof. 

Voted, That the new dormitory be named Thayer Hall. 

Voted, That the Building Committee be directed to place in the ves- 
tibule, or other suitable position, a tablet with an inscription expressive 
of the memorial design contemplated by Mr. Thayer. 1 

In the preceding letter Mr. Thayer makes a reference to 
the interest and generosity shown towards the College by his 
brother. By his will, executed in 1855, to three trustees 
named, and their successors, Mr. John Eliot Thayer says : — 

" I give the sum of fifty thousand dollars, to pay the income of and 
from said sum to the ten most meritorious scholars in Harvard Univer- 
sity every year, etc. I had intended to have given to the University 
a very large sum, and indeed in a former will which I had made had 
done so ; but I have seen, for the last few years, a constant disposition 
among politicians and certain sectarians to get possession of the same, 
which I have no doubt will greatly injure the same," etc. 

The reference here is to that inauspicious period in the his- 
tory of the College, when the Legislature, having induced a 
change in the mode of electing the members of the Board of 
Overseers of Harvard College, had taken the task and office 
into its own hands. Parties and sects demanding a repre- 
sentation on the Board exposed the College to all the con- 
tentions and rivalries of political management. Mr. Thayer's 
intended bequests were not the only gifts which were lost to 
the College at that period. The extraordinary prosperity of 
the University in recent years has found one among the 
several occasions of it in the abandonment of that political 

1 The tablet bears this simple inscription : — 

THIS HALL IS ERECTED BY 

NATHANIEL THAYER 

IN MEMORY OF HIS FATHER, 

NATHANIEL THAYER, D.D. 

AND OF HIS BROTHER, 

JOHN ELIOT THAYER. 
1870. 



32 

method of mischief, and the committal of the institution to 
the oversight of its own alumni. 

Professor Asa Gray has furnished the writer with some of 
the particulars connected with another of Mr. N. Thayer's ben- 
efactions to the University, — namely, his provision of a fire- 
proof Herbarium, with furnishings and library, in connection 
with the Botanic Gardens. This was one among the many 
objects and directions of Mr. Thayer's generosity, in which, 
while starting with a will and expectation of co-operating with 
others in instituting or advancing some special design, he 
found himself led on, by circumstances of his own prompting, 
to do the whole, and even then to be ready to meet the inci- 
dental consequences in the development of methods and ne- 
cessities. The solid and well-protected brick structure for 
the Herbarium cost about $ 12,000. It needed an elaborate 
system of cases and drawers ; then an addition to its library ; 
then the Garden itself drew on him for its restoration, in 
the amount of $5,000. Only his own private papers would 
show the whole cost of his offering to the collection and 
preservation of Flora. One of the courtesies which generous 
givers among us are learning to observe towards each other 
is shown in hesitating to supplement eacn other's gifts by 
additions of their own to the deposit. When a new scheme 
or object has found its first advocate or pecuniary supporter, 
the new courtesy seems to suggest that he have the whole 
burden and credit of it. This certainly was illustrated in 
the next of Mr. Thayer's generous deeds. 

Under the name of the " Thayer Expedition," rightly so 
called, because it was prompted, and so far as private liberal- 
ity was engaged, was wholly sustained, at the charge of the 
subject of this Memoir, appreciative notice must here be taken 
of a most successful enterprise of world-wide interest to scien- 
tists and naturalists. The expedition combined in equal por- 
tions the lofty and chivalrous enthusiasm of Professor Louis 
Agassiz, and the unstinted generosity of Mr. Thayer. And it 
may be added that Mr. Thayer himself acted under the double 



33 

inspiration of his interest in science and his admiration and 
love for the great naturalist. If either of these impulses had 
the predominance in Mr. Thayer's motives, it was doubtless his 
response to the magnetic and kindling enthusiasm of Mr. 
Agassiz. The objects of the expedition, as set forth by the 
Professor, might naturally, to a man not a scientist, be sec- 
ondary to his confidence that one who was a master in all the 
lore of Nature would be sure to turn to highest account any 
opportunity offered to him. Mr. Thayer, being eminently a 
practical man, might well have found many other objects of a 
strictly scientific character to engage his interest ; and his well- 
established repute for lavish patronage of the most miscella- 
neous utilities never left him unsolicited for pecuniary favors. 
Indeed, when the results of the expedition came to be re- 
ported, he found matter for his hearty humor in the marvel- 
lous superabundance of thousands of specimens of grotesque 
and inedible fishes, which, having been drawn from their na- 
tive element, required quite another liquid for their preserva- 
tion. Mr. Thayer's intimates will recall the . amusement he 
found for himself and them, when he would express a sort of 
penitence for having been concerned in drawing out so many 
briny creatures from the sea, the penalty being the obligation 
to furnish a seeming ocean of alcohol for their future nour- 
ishment. A suggestion of the measure of this exaction may 
be gathered from the following extract of a report of Profes- 
sor Agassiz in 1869. He had asked of his assistants a count 
of all the glass jars of fishes already put up with specimens 
in alcohol. The return was, " fifteen thousand two hundred 
and forty-two jars, of all sizes, from the smallest, three inches 
high by one inch in diameter, to the largest, three feet high 
by nine inches in diameter, containing each from one to 
fifty and more specimens, and occasionally even several hun- 
dreds. And yet this is by no means half of the collection. 
The rest remain for the present piled up in tanks, kegs, cans, 
earthen jars, and other vessels." It was this last half that Mr. 
Thayer thought so unconscionably craving of the costly liquor. 

5 



34 

A slight relief was found in procuring from Congress an act 
to remit the excise duty on alcohol for scientific purposes. 

But this is in anticipation of our theme. Mr. Thayer was 
easily drawn to a generous interest in all scientific pursuits. 
In his later years he often expressed in substance the follow- 
ing views : As wealth and the opportunities for a life of lei- 
sure and wide culture increased in this community, numbers of 
young men would come into the inheritance of fortunes ex- 
empting them from dependence upon mercantile and profes- 
sional pursuits. It was desirable to engage their interest in 
studies and investigations which, though they might very 
rarely be found to be pecuniarily profitable, would be refining 
and elevating. Mr. Thayer recognized in Mr. Agassiz a man 
of grand genius, of noble capacities, of full-hearted devotion 
to his science, and of a wholly unselfish aim in its pursuit ; 
who would receive no place or office, gift or present, as of 
personal use or reward, but would plead and even with dig- 
nity beg for the patronage of science. Mr. Thayer thought 
it was an honor to our country that Mr. Agassiz should trans- 
fer his citizenship to it for life, and should reject the solicita- 
tions of Louis Philippe to accept high position and service in 
France. There is a noble sentence from the pen of Agassiz, 
which expresses the scope and inspiration of his aim. He said 
the time had passed when men manifested their religious zeal 
in such works as the Cathedral at Cologne and the Basilica 
of St. Peter's, and added : " It is my hope to see, with the pro- 
gress of intellectual culture, a structure arise among us which 
may be a temple of the revelations made in the material uni- 
verse, to embrace the infinite work of the Infinite Wisdom." 
(Eeport for 1869.) 

Mr. Agassiz had procured in 1859, with large subsequent 
help from State grants, as well as from individuals, the found- 
ing of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, in connection with 
Harvard College. The Professor's ideal of this institution, and 
his prophecy and conviction of what it would grow to be, 
were, from the first, of the loftiest, and all-comprehensive. He 



35 

saw it, and not in a very distant future, rivalling and out- 
reaching the grandest museums of Europe, which had mon- 
archs for their patrons,' national treasuries for their support, 
and the most eminent savans for their servants. Certainly, if 
the development of the institution, the extending sweep of its 
buildings, and the busy workers engaged in it, — men and 
women, — may serve as tokens, his vision was of realities. 
Still, though the grand liberality of his son, enriched by the 
proceeds of a gold mine which yields only copper, has given to 
the institution more than all that it had before received from 
all sources, even to a sum exceeding half a million dollars, 
it has its aim still only in an advanced stage of progress. 

Professor Agassiz was the Director of this Institution, and 
Mr. Thayer was the Treasurer of the Corporation, at the time 
now to be noted in the history of the Thayer Expedition. All 
who have been associated with Mr. Thayer in the various soci- 
eties of which he was the treasurer well know what advan- 
tage accrued to their funds. One of the fruits of the Thayer 
Expedition is a volume bearing the following title : " A Jour- 
ney in Brazil, by Professor and Mrs. Louis Agassiz. Boston : 
Ticknor & Fields. 1868." The contents of the book are 
mainly from the journal of Mrs. Agassiz. One of the services 
of the wife on the journey is expressed in the following lines 

from Longfellow, quoted on the titlepage : — 

t 

" And whenever the way seemed long, 
Or his heart began to fail, 
She would sing a more wonderful song, 
Or tell a more marvellous tale." 

The dedication of the volume is — 

" To Mr. Nathaniel Thayer, the Friend who made it possible to give 
this Journey the character of a Scientific Expedition, The Present 
Volume is Gratefully inscribed." 

In simple and graceful sentences the Professor relates the 
circumstances which led to the expedition. In 1865 he had felt 
it necessary to seek relief from the strain and weariness of 



36 

work, and recuperation of health by change and motion. His 
thoughts and longings turned to the study of the Fauna of 
Brazil, particularly as its enlightened and generous Emperor 
had previously expressed his sympathy with Agassiz, and had 
sent valuable collections to the Museum at Cambridge. But 
the distance of space, the expense of time, the lack of pecu- 
niary resources, and the necessity of providing for competent 
scientific assistants and companions to aid his single-handed 
efforts, were formidable obstacles in the way. The words of 
this earnest seeker must be quoted here : — 

" While I was brooding over these thoughts I chanced to meet Mr. 
Nathaniel Thayer, whom I have ever found a generous friend to sci- 
ence. The idea of appealing to him for a scheme of this magnitude had 
not, however, occurred to me ; but he introduced the subject, and after 
expressing his interest in my proposed journey, added, ' You wish, of 
course, to give it a scientific character; take six assistants with you, and 
I will be responsible for all their expenses, personal and scientific. , It 
was so simply said, and seemed to me so great a boon, that at first I 
hardly believed I had heard him rightly. In the end I had cause to see 
in how large and liberal a sense he proffered his support to the expedi- 
tion, which, as is usual in such cases, proved longer and more costly 
than was at first anticipated. Not only did he provide most liberally 
for assistants, but until the last specimen was stored in the Museum, 
he continued to advance whatever sums were needed, always desiring 
me to inform him should any additional expenses occur on closing up 
the affairs of the expedition. It seems to me that the good arising from 
the knowledge of such facts justifies me in speaking here of these gen- 
erous deeds, accomplished so unostentatiously that they. might other- 
wise pass unnoticed." (Preface.) 

What is most observable in the matter of this charming 
narrative from the grateful writer is the open-handed, whole- 
hearted spirit of the patron of this expedition. The expense 
of it was wholly inestimable and incalculable. A set effort 
to foretell its cost was utterly impracticable, as too many un- 
known conditions would enter into it. Not even time was 
defined. Not a word seems to have been said by either party 
on the subject. The rule of prudence on all but the most 





fr'/f^loAteaC ^y X 



r &e*zj ■frzj>7>'7s a 



37 

exceptional occasions, "First count the cost," was wholly set 
aside. It was one of those rare free-speech contracts between 
good-will and confidence, the only conditions of which were 
honest and intelligent enthusiasm on one side, and lavish gen- 
erosity on the other. As circumstances, immediately to be 
mentioned, which could b} r no means have been foreseen or 
calculated upon, supplied quite considerable resources for re- 
ducing the charges which would have come upon Mr. Thayer, 
his liberality found a limit not at all of his seeking. For 
many reasons this expedition was remarkable and exemplary. 
It was then the first, and up to this time the only, scientific 
enterprise, outside of our own country or even within it, sus- 
tained at the charges and by the unstinted liberality of an in- 
dividual, who allowed the receiver to measure the amount by 
his own large aim and purpose. Mr. Thayer found his full 
return in every circumstance and event, every appreciative 
and helping agency which came in to advance the enterprise, 
and in its rich and auspicious results. His pleasure began in 
realizing, as he parted with Professor Agassiz, the radiant and 
beaming delight of the great naturalist, as he started to seek 
the improvement of his grand opportunity and the fruition of 
his high expectations. His trained scientific assistants were an 
artist, a conch ologist, two geologists, an ornithologist, and a 
preparator. There were also six or more volunteers, with sci- 
entific tastes and other accomplishments, all of them catching 
the ardent enthusiasm of their leader. Among these was 
Stephen Van Rensselaer, the eldest son of Mr. Thayer, whose 
career of promise and hopefulness closed in early manhood in 
1871. These assistants were sent off in groups charged with 
special errands and investigations on land and water in Brazil, 
and contributed largely to the comprehensive results of the ex- 
pedition. These were by no means limited to the investiga- 
tion of the fishes and the fauna of the country, but embraced 
in the widest compass all its products and phenomena. The 
favoring circumstances above referred to, which came in to 
supplement the free liberality of the patron of the enterprise, 



38 

were of the most helpful and auspicious character, alike grati- 
fying to Professor Agassiz, as exhibiting a responsive sym- 
pathy in his purposes, and as largely helping to facilitate, 
extend, and secure the full success of the expedition. The 
President of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company offered to 
the whole party of sixteen members the hospitalhYy of their 
magnificent ship the "Colorado," just then sailing from New 
York for the Pacific coast. She was furnished with a large 
aquarium on deck, and with all needful appliances and conve- 
niences. They sailed from New York, April 1, 1865. During 
the three weeks' passage to Rio de Janeiro, the earnest Pro- 
fessor, furnished with his blackboard, delivered to his company 
in the cabin of the reeling and tossing vessel, lessons and in- 
structions preparatory to the active work in which they were 
all soon to be engaged. The Secretary of the Navy issued 
general orders to all officers of the United States, to assist in 
the researches of the expedition and to receive and bring home 
its collections. More than all, the Professor at once received 
the heartiest co-operation and furtherance of Dom Pedro, 
" a sovereign as enlightened as he is humane •" and all the 
authorities and people of his empire proceeded to contribute 
all facilities and aids of hospitality and various service, mak- 
ing the party guests in every public conveyance. The daily 
journals of the Professor and of his gifted wife — a duplication 
of himself — are inextricably interwoven in the pages of the 
charming volume, " A Journey in Brazil." 

The enormous collections of the expedition began to be re- 
ceived in Cambridge in 1866 ; and though the extensive spaces 
of the Museum for receiving and displaying them have been 
lengthening and broadening ever since, they are not yet all 
open and classified. The Professor made his first report 
before his return in 1867. 

In the Report of the Trustees of the Museum in January, 
1866, itis — 

" Ordered, That the grateful acknowledgments of this Board be of- 
fered by the President to Nathaniel Thayer, Esq., for his munifi- 



39 

cent, kind, and well-considered arrangements, enabling Professor Louis 
Agassiz, in the way he most desires, and in the most efficient manner, 
to serve the interests of the Museum, and the cause of science, during 
his present absence in South America." 

The Governor of Massachusetts, — then John A. Andrew, — 
being ex officio President of the Board of Trustees, was the 
medium for presenting its grateful acknowledgments to the 
Emperor of Brazil. 

The writer has before him a packet of letters addressed to 
Mr. Thayer by Professor and Mrs. Agassiz while absent on the 
expedition, or in relation to subjects which engaged them in 
their pleasant intercourse with each other. The matter of 
them is too strictly private and personal to admit of their being 
introduced here ; but they are all expressive of that warm 
regard and grateful appreciation of the kindness and gener- 
osity of Mr. Thayer which refined sentiment would associate 
with a sense of obligation. Always emphasizing the fact that 
Mr. Agassiz, one of the most unselfish of men, never sought 
or would receive gifts or tributes of a personal character, it 
was well known to all who knew him, that he never yielded to 
any show of diffidence or hesitation, whether before a commit- 
tee of the Legislature or in interviews with rich men, in seek- 
ing patronage for what he represented. It was not himself, 
but.his " science," that he would secure from starvation, and 
have stand forth in proper garb and surroundings. Writing 
earnestly to Mr. Thayer for help in obtaining some foreign 
scientific collection, he concludes : "Asa mark of your con- 
tinued friendship to me, you will excuse my constant appeals 
to jom for aid, counsel, and comfort." 

The following letter was written to Mr. Thayer by Professor 
Agassiz while on his expedition : — 

Talcahuano, Chili, April 26, 1872. 

My dear Sir, — While I daily think of you and yours, and feel 

thankful for the additional comforts you have provided for us on our 

journey, I reproach myself that I have not yet given you a direct sign 

of life ; but the daily pressure of work which the riches of Nature often 



40 

make rather heavy (and, may I not add, the diminution of strength of 
which I have too often strong reminders) makes writing difficult for me, 
especially on board the ship. Indeed, I have lately felt that I would 
probably be more benefited by the voyage if I could make a change ; and 
so I have decided on taking a journey by land along the foot of the 
Andes, with my good wife, and to join again the ship at Valparaiso. 
You have made this possible to me ; and I love to thank you for it be- 
fore even I start. I have been so unexpectedly successful in tracing 
the evidence of the former presence of glaciers in this part of the world, 
that by going a little farther inland I may add some valuable informa- 
tion to that which I already possess. 

On the whole, our journey has been highly successful. Nature is so 
prolific that it is impossible for an observer to stop anywhere where 
special investigations have not yet been made, without making valuable 
additions to human knowledge. These circumstances make up for sev- 
eral mishaps which have befallen our ship, and would have caused the 
loss of much valuable time, were it not almost immaterial where we 
stop for collecting. 

It gives me great pleasure to be able to say that I am, on the whole, 
much improved. And yet I feel constantly that this journey is almost 
too much for me, — at least, if I attempt to do all I should like to accom- 
plish, — while little work suits me much better. This has led me to the 
conviction that hereafter my place is at Cambridge, in the Museum, 
and that I shall henceforth devote all my time to make that institution 
all I feel able to make it, and publish at the same time the observations 
I have accumulated in my note-books, which might be entirely lost 
unless I put them in order in time. I do not, therefore, think of ex- 
tending this journey beyond its contemplated range, as I would gladly 
have done while I was in Brazil ; but propose to be at home in Cam- 
bridge in time to attend the October meeting of the Board of Trus- 
tees of the Museum, present my Annual Report, and submit my views 
concerning the ultimate organization of the Museum. I am now confi- 
dent that Massachusetts has one of the great museums of the world. It 
remains only for me so to arrange it that everybody who visits it shall 
carry away the same impression. 

Mrs. Agassiz sends much love to you and Mrs. Thayer, to whom I 
beg also to be affectionately remembered. I venture to ask for it in 
these words, for I am constantly with you in thought and recollections. 

Ever truly yours, 

L. Agassiz. 
Nathaniel Thayer, Esq. 



41 

Mr. Thayer's munificent generosity for the objects which so 
engaged the toil and zeal of Agassiz met with much appre- 
ciative notice in Europe. The " Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde," 
a Geographical Society in Berlin, — one of the oldest, most 
honorable, of the European learned societies, and, like them 
all, exclusive, — an association gathering such members as 
Humboldt, Carl Hitter, Lipsius, Dr. Livingstone, and the 
like, — elected Professor Agassiz and Mr. Thayer to Honorary 
Membership. The diploma of the latter was accompanied by 
a letter to him as " a high-minded friend of science." 

As was intimated on a previous page, the establishment 
of a repute for liberality such as characterized the subject of 
this Memoir, was an announcement to the whole community 
of one to whom every good cause might confidently appeal 
for furtherance. Doubtful objects and importunate solicita- 
tions would not be wanting. Mr. Thayer was worldly-wise, 
discriminating, and independent, and knew how to refuse or 
mildly decline. But these were exceptional cases. It would 
not be consistent with a regard for the modesty and dignity 
which were so prominent in him to make an exposition or 
summary of his good and generous deeds. The list of our 
curiously classified institutions for every form of charity, be- 
nevolence, literary, scientific, and artistic culture, and all prac- 
tical good objects and ends, is well known to be a very long one, 
and the solicitors for them are by no means only annual in 
their calls. It would be difficult to find a single one of them 
that was initiated without a gift of thousands from Mr. 
Thayer, or aided by repeated contributions lavish and heartily 
bestowed on the instant call. The Massachusetts General 
Hospital and the Children's Hospital in Boston were large 
sharers in his generosity. The newspapers might have kept 
his name in type as answering to all appeals at home and 
from abroad. Indeed, the announcement of a liberal gift from 
him appeared in the papers which noted his decease. The 
private pensioners on his bounty, continued on his memoranda 
for years, were as sure of an annual return as if they had 



42 

claims on an annuity. The genial and kindly tone and smile 
added a grace to his favors. 

Another direction in which Mr. Thayer exercised a large 
liberality deserves a special mention. On a change in the 
ministry of the Second Church, then standing on its old site 
in North Boston, he connected himself, as his brother John had 
done, with the First Church, on its then site in Chauncey Place. 
The edifice there was fast becoming wholly unsuited to its 
purpose by the removal of its old households, the thinning of 
the congregation, and the conversion of the neighborhood into 
a crowded mart for business. It was necessary for the sur- 
vival and prosperous renewal of the Society that it should pre- 
pare for a great change of place, and for the erection of a fifth 
edifice in succession to its first wilderness temple, rude and 
homely in material and structure. So long as the rich and 
tasteful and solid edifice of the First Church at the corner of 
Berkeley and Marlborough Streets shall stand, it will be a 
monument of the zealous perseverance and of the munificence 
of Mr. Thayer. He was proud of being in the direct lineage, 
on the maternal side, of the memorable John Cotton, the ejected 
rector of St. Botolph's Church in Boston, Old England, and 
the first associate pastor of the First Church in our Boston. 
He was resolved that wherever the proposed edifice should be 
planted it should worthily represent, amid the development of 
prosperity, wealth, and taste in this city, the original altar- 
shrine of the English colonists, and that the simple title borne 
for more than two and a quarter centuries should be perpetu- 
ated. At the time when measures for the removal were in- 
itiated, about 1865 and 1866, the reclaiming and occupancy 
of the alluvial region of the Back Bay, now covered with 
palatial edifices, and coursed by noble avenues, was a novel 
enterprise, not as yet of assured success. There were many 
who were not sanguine as to the occupancy and healthfulness 
of a region to be rescued from tidal waters for the production 
of a new Dutch land. The state of business and of the pecu- 
niary interests of the community, so recently after the dis- 



43 

tractions of our Civil War, then just closed, were discouraging 
facts to some as affecting the prospects of a costly enterprise, 
with a deranged -currency, a high premium on gold, and an 
advance upon labor and building materials. But for the hope- 
fulness and resolve of Mr. Thayer the enterprise would have 
halted, perhaps to the discouragement of the purpose. And 
when undertaken, but for his lavish aid it would have been 
burdened with encumbrance ; for it was a part of his resolve 
that when the time came for dedicating the edifice to God, it 
should not be mortgaged to man. He was earnest, perhaps 
importunate and enthusiastic, with some of his mistrusting 
associates. He felt assured that the plans which he projected 
were wise, and to those whom he failed to convince or win to 
it, he could but offer arguments and demonstrations. It was 
well understood, however, by the doubtful, that nothing on 
his part would be wanting to meet or avert any emergencies. 
He was fully justified and gratified by the result. The sub- 
stitution on another site of a new place of worship revived 
and invigorated a wasting religious society, which, under the 
charge of a faithful and earnest ministry, is a centre of wide- 
extended Christian activity, and has the pledge of spanning 
the centuries. An ample space for church and chapel was 
provided on the new land ; and appropriate structures, in all 
substantial solidity of material, with all fit appointments and 
adornments in good art and pure taste, receive only commend- 
ing judgment. Mr. Thayer's contributions exceeded the sum 
of $75,000, nearly a quarter of the whole cost, though much 
wealth is represented in the Society. He erected in the 
church a fine memorial window to his partner brother, and an 
appropriate memorial of himself is about to be placed within 
the walls. 

One of the obligations — or privileges, as it may be re- 
garded — of the steadily decreasing proportion of our city 
population identified as pew-holders, responsible members, 
and regular attendants and supporters in our places of wor- 
ship, is that of representing for our whole community, either 



44; 



as willing parties or as convenient substitutes, a large part of 
all the religious and benevolent causes, which are incessant 
and multiplied in their appeals. The Christian religion in- 
vented Sunday, preaching, and the contribution-box. Those 
who put themselves in intimate relations with the two former 
of these Christian institutions become very familiar with the 
last of them. It is all right, and true loyalty holds the faith- 
ful to the conditions. The more we appreciate the good that 
is done for ourselves the more likely we are to be interested 
in securing the same for others. The contribution-box is in 
itself but an emblem. It represents, in its widest range, sub- 
scription papers, appeals of individuals and committees, and 
all sorts of efforts to pay debts, to prevent debts, and to fund 
resources. To every object connected with the welfare and 
religious and humane works of his church, Mr. Thayer, though 
wholly lacking in all limitations and motives of sectarian zeal, 
was promptly responsive. He was at times a committee of 
one, and an efficient one. Strongly attached to the simplicity 
and method of the liberalized Congregational form of worship 
under which he had been trained, — that of his father and his 
home, — though he in no way opposed or objected to the 
adoption of a form of service by a book in the First Church, 
he was hardly in sympathy with it. He tried to familiarize 
himself with the alternations of " standing up and sitting 
down " and with " finding the place " in the book ; but the 
effort, he said, was not helpful to his devotions. 

In his full health and vigor, Mr. Thayer enjoyed the refined 
pleasures, the hospitalities, and social clubs of his city life. 
His business interests led him to frequent and extensive jour- 
neys over the country, and he made the usual European 
voyages. 

Mr. Thayer will always be most pleasantly remembered in 
his associations with Lancaster by those who were privileged 
to be his guests there. He was never weaned from the home 
of his youth, and it became more attractive and satisfying to 
him in his later years. The widow of Dr. Thayer spent the 



45 

remainder of her life — which closed June 22, 1857, in the 
same year as that of her son, John Eliot — in the old parson- 
age. In the kindly spirit of her relations to the parish, as 
the wife of its honored minister, she received, as permanent 
guests for her hospitality, the two young men who in succes- 
sion acceded to the pastorate, till each of them had homes of 
their own. She found a most valued and welcome friend in 
that much revered and highly gifted man, scholar, divine, 
and poet, — the late Rev. E. H. Sears. When his failure in 
health compelled his resignation of office, his successor, the 
Rev. George M. Bartol, the present minister, was very near to 
her in her last years. Both the brothers, during the period 
of their most engrossing business life, were constant visitors 
to the old home, ministering to the comfort of their parents, 
and to that especially of the surviving mother. Though Mr. 
Nathaniel Thayer was for many years a citizen of Boston, he 
always regarded himself as belonging, through affection and 
inclination, to Lancaster, and in his later years transferred 
his citizenship to it, and assumed the duties which the re- 
lation involved. He would gladly have retained the old par- 
sonage for his own residence had its size and condition served 
for his own household. When it was found necessary to raze 
it, he formed his plans, with the aid of his chosen architect, 
to replace it by a spacious and beautiful villa-mansion on the 
old site. He was scrupulously careful to preserve all the 
features of the spot and its surroundings. The old well, with 
its sweep, was left, sheltered by the old elms, as the central 
ornament of the lawn. The old trees, the oaks and the chest- 
nuts, which his parents had found on the spot or had planted, 
remained. The adornments of the extended grounds are in 
keeping with a refined taste. The Nashua runs through the 
green meadows. At a convenient distance stand the exten- 
sive farm buildings, with their contents of heavy crops, the 
best mechanical implements, and the approved stock of cattle, 
the increase of which were at the service of his neighbor 
husbandmen far and near, to improve the breed through the 



46 

county. Mr. Thayer's mode of life here, as well as in the 
city, was characterized by an elegant and graceful simplicity. 
There was every provision and appliance for comfort and true 
enjoyment, with no trace of ostentation or parade, no elabo- 
rateness of equipage or liveries, — no overdoing in anything. 
It always seemed to his guests that their host, in many things, 
was regarding them rather than himself, and could on his own 
part dispense with much that was around him were it not 
that they might enjoy themselves to the fullest. Always cor- 
dial and genial in look and manner when he was in full health, 
he was radiant in cheerfulness and heartily responsive to 
mirthfulness and merriment. A guest might well recall his 
boyhood's freedom and helpfulness when, on his host's invita- 
tion to a lazy drive, he accompanied him to the stable, and 
though grooms and horses and vehicles abounded, the host 
would himself select his favorite animal from the stall and 
proceed to harness him into a favorite and well-worn buggy. 
The loitering drive through the wooded roads was described 
as " poking round." Every highway and by-path and cross- 
cut, near and far, over frequent bridgings of the winding 
water-courses ; every sightly prospect, and all the local names, 
— as numerous as those by which the vanished Indians knew 
every feature of the territory, — had been got by heart by 
Mr. Thayer in his youth, and never lapsed from his remem- 
brance. 

Another tie which bound Mr. Thayer very strongly to Lan- 
caster was because it continued to be the life-long residence — 
save for her visits to him in the winter in Boston — of his un- 
married sister, Miss Mary Ann Thayer. She was eight years 
his elder. The relation between them was one of singular 
tenderness and regard, and, on his part, of deferential rever- 
ence. He seemed to transfer to her the respect and attach- 
ment which he had felt for their parents. And she was, in 
fact, not only to him, but to the people of the town, and 
especially of the parish, the representative of those parents. 
Slender in form, delicate- in constitution, mild and gentle in 



47 

her ways, but of great force of character, she impressed all 
who knew her by the graces of her simple dignity and refine- 
ment. Her own strong preferences led her to identify her 
whole life, which closed but a few years before that of her 
brother Nathaniel, with the scenes of her father's ministry. 
To her brother's children she filled the ideal of a beloved and 
fondly watchful maiden aunt. She was the good angel of the 
village. All cases of illness, misfortune, and want hardly 
needed to be reported to her, for she seemed to be the earliest 
to know of them, as of everything that interested or cheered 
the inmates of the surrounding homes. They were all sharers 
in her full-hearted sympathy and service. Her life closed 
April 17, 1876. 

The guests of Mr. Thayer in his country home could not 
fail to note the relations of intimacy and acquaintance in 
which he stood with the people of the town, and with all its 
local interests, civil, social, domestic, and religious. It seemed 
sometimes as if he recognized and was acting under a sort of 
large and general responsibility entailed upon him by his 
father. Of all the residents of his own age, and in good part 
of their children, he knew the names, employments, and con- 
dition, and was on a footing of most cordial familiarity with 
them. Driving, with a visitor as a companion, by the main or 
cross roads, the meadows, fields, or wood- ways in the neigh- 
borhood, the farmer at the sight of him would pause in his 
work, come to the fence, and seem to resume some former 
conversation on the crops, the weather, or any matter of inter- 
est to the town. On Sunday he would loiter in the meeting- 
house porch or near the horse-sheds, as if one of the old-time 
group, at what was once the village exchange before the era 
of newspapers and the modern frequency of assemblings. It 
was pleasant to note the perfect cordiality between him and 
his contemporaries, who had been pursuing the current of 
their lives amid the quiet surroundings of those rural scenes 
while he had been acquiring a fortune a fragment of which 
would purchase all their possessions. 



48 

There was something strikingly characteristic of Mr*. Thayer 
in the judgment and method which he followed in his various 
and innumerable co-operative services to his native town in all 
its interests and in its improvement and adornment. There 
was a delicate consideration to be observed in the case, the 
graceful regard of which by both parties could alone make 
their relations friendly and respectful. There are rural com- 
munities in which a native-born citizen returning to it from a 
very prosperous business career abroad, or an adopted resident 
under similar circumstances, would be a mark for envy or 
over-expectations. He might be welcomed as one who would 
relieve, if not wholly remove, all the burdens of taxation, or 
anticipate by lavish largesses the prosperity which can health- 
fully come only by time and general thriftiness. Some of Mr. 
Thayer's visiting companions on their drives may recall the 
case of a citizen, now deceased, in another town, not of marked 
prosperity, who was regarded as by no means a desirable mem- 
ber of his community. He was the richest man in it, holding 
mortgages on most of its farms, horses, and cattle, never re- 
laxing his grasp on anything, and with his hands open only 
for more. He was looked upon, spoken of, and treated by his 
neighbors after the fashion in which human nature, whether 
corrupt or honest, will declare itself under such circumstances. 
The squire or millionnaire of a rural community has as much 
occasion for the exercise of a sound discretion as of a spirit 
of generosity. 

The Free Academies and Libraries, the Homes and Refuges, 
and the ornamented grounds, which now dot our village towns 
over all New England, and largely over other parts of our 
country, are the kindly and well-appreciated deposits made by 
munificent men, who in their prosperity have renewed their 
early ties to frugal homes. It would have consisted equally 
with the good-will as with the resources of Mr. Thayer to 
have discharged in a lump all the municipal expenses of his 
native town, — for its highways and bridges, its schools and 
churches, and its poor. But his good, sound sense, and still 



49 

more his respect for his townsmen, would have made such an 
act of assumption and folly impossible to him. His sagacity 
and manliness led him to a very marked method in his favors. 
He was careful to avoid all ostentation and show of patronage. 
He might sometimes have been prompted by another's hint of 
some desirable direction of his generosity. In most cases, if 
not always, the suggestion came from himself. As, however, 
he always wished to have the people appear as doing all that 
they were disposed to do in all good objects, he intimated that 
they would take the lead thus : u See and try what you can 
do yourselves, and then come to me." He assigned to them 
no measurement or proportion, nor did he limit the balance 
which would come from him. When the mania was at its 
height among us at the North for sprinkling over our towns, 
under the name of " Soldiers' Monuments," heaps of stones 
and statues, to be exposed on village greens to the rigors of 
our climate and as marks for playing children, he might have 
been of the same mind as Cicero, that the memorials of a civil 
war should be made of wood, that they might decay all the 
sooner. But he loved patriotism, and he would commemorate 
patriots in a way to promote that and other virtues. So his 
choice for his native town was for a free public library, with 
well-laden shelves, a reading-room, and all needful appliances. 
In this should be reared a pure white marble tablet, bearing 
in letters of gold the names of the honored dead, so that every 
youth coming for a book should have the memorial with its 
lesson always before him. " See what you can do about it " 
was his word to his townsmen. The town treasury contrib- 
uted five thousand dollars to the object. Private subscrip- 
tions added six thousand more. The balance, being about 
two thirds of the whole cost, was defrayed by Mr. Thayer, 
who also funded a generous sum for its support. So too in 
the restoration, slating, and adornment of the substantial 
brick meeting-house built during his father's ministry, he 
added to his contribution to the work an endowment of ten 
thousand dollars for the parish. And in providing a new 

7 



50 

chapel his word was repeated, u See what 3 7 ou can do about 
it ; " adding, " While you are about it you had better have 
it done in the best manner." The balance lay with himself. 
He pursued the same course in the restoration, enlargement, 
and beautifying of the old burial-grounds, in one of which 
rest the remains of his parents. In his private beneficences, 
in a large variety of subjects and directions, he kept his own 
secrets. His stock farm for many uses of distribution repre- 
sented what his bank of deposit did in the city. It was by 
these methods of a wise and generous co-operating liberality 
that the most cordial and mutually respectful relations existed 
between Mr. Thayer and his townsmen. A very impressive 
manifestation of their tender regard for him was shown when, 
on the day of his funeral from his city church, — a day of 
storm, of snow and rain and sleet, and of discomforts in travel, 
— the porch and aisles were filled by unsummoned groups of 
those mourning friends. 

The last three years of Mr. Thayer's life, though free of 
any severity of pain and suffering, were attended by an en- 
feeblement of bodily vigor which occasionally impaired the 
full exercise of his mental powers. He was gentle and 
patient under the needful suspense of his business activity 
and in the seclusion of his home. His release came on the 
seventh day of March, 1883, at the age of seventy-four. 1 



1 At a critical interval in Mr. Thayer's protracted illness a large committee 
chosen for the purpose addressed to him the following letter : — 

Lancaster, March 20, 1882. 
Nathaniel Thayer, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — Your fellow-citizens of this town have heard of your serious ill- 
ness with a regret that has now deepened into painful solicitude. 

Assembled in their Annual Meeting this day, they ask us to address you in 
their behalf. 

They hereby tender to you their thankful acknowledgments of all that you 
have been and done, in wise counsels and in many generous gifts and endowments 
for the material and moral advancement of the town. 

They are very sensible how much they owe to you, and in how many ways ; 
and what reasons they have, and the generations to come after them will have, 
for holding your name and memory, in succession to those of your honored 
father and mother, in grateful pride and affection. 



51 

Mr. Thayer married, June 10, 1846, Cornelia, daughter of 
General Stephen Van Rensselaer, of Albany, New York. 
She, with two married daughters, and two married and two 
unmarried sons, survive him. He was interred in his lot in 
Mount Auburn Cemeter}^. 

In 1881 the members of the old Congregational Parish in 
Lancaster erected a brick chapel of the same style of archi- 
tecture as the meeting-house, to which it is attached. It bears 
the name of the Thayer Memorial Chapel, in grateful remem- 
brance of Dr. Thayer and his wife, with portraits of them, 
and a brass memorial tablet. Since the decease of Mr. Na- 
thaniel Thayer the parishioners have set up in it a memorial 
tablet to him of Caen stone. 



FEB 23 1909 



